Can the PDT comment on the chances that this gets tweaked at least? I think what makes NS2 stand out from other games is that it isn't a casual shooter. You don't want this to be a casual shooter or it loses it's appeal to a lot of people that play the game. I think having tracking assist bars are going too far in that direction. Why not change it so it doesn't assist in tracking? Tracking well is an important part of the game and shouldn't be simplified. I don't think the field players should know the health of the aliens. If you must put that in the game, at least make it not assist in tracking in any way.

The ways that health bars have impacted the game has been positive and we aren't going to be removing them. The fact is that NS2 is a ridiculously inaccessible game, and that some of the simple things like tracking players, understanding how much damage you do, how your abilities actually work, and how much health enemies are important for new players (and even old players) to understand and learn the finer points of the game.

Showing enemy health definitely does not suddenly turn NS2 into a casual shooter. If you think it does, you are making some gross oversimplifications to everything else in the NS2 meta.

I do understand the complaints you all have, have read them all, and understand how this feature does change the game. I have been, and will continue to tweak the game to account for the experiences you are feeling are now missing. As an example, the redesign of the Onos bone shield came directly out of the discussions you all had about not being able to bait anymore due to players being able to see your health. It is a way to reintroduce some baiting without having the bait rely on imperfect / partially-hidden information.

Quoting this again to remind people what a bad development and community interaction policy looks like. Lets go down the list. See if you can find exactly where each point is hit.
-Contradicts community feedback by vaguely insisting a bad change has been "positive"
-Decrees that the change is permanent despite overwhelming community outcry in the negative
-Misrepresent the arguments people are using in order to get an easy position to defend your change from.
-Fail to make any real arguments in favor of your position other than the aforementioned "its positive"
-Claim to understand complaints immediately after failing to properly interpret and respond to a quote in the same post.
-Claim that holes left by the newly missing experiences are being filled by unrelated and half baked mechanics.
-Ignoring community feedback, then retroactively pretending that changes made personally were based on community feedback.

Can the PDT comment on the chances that this gets tweaked at least? I think what makes NS2 stand out from other games is that it isn't a casual shooter. You don't want this to be a casual shooter or it loses it's appeal to a lot of people that play the game. I think having tracking assist bars are going too far in that direction. Why not change it so it doesn't assist in tracking? Tracking well is an important part of the game and shouldn't be simplified. I don't think the field players should know the health of the aliens. If you must put that in the game, at least make it not assist in tracking in any way.

The ways that health bars have impacted the game has been positive and we aren't going to be removing them. The fact is that NS2 is a ridiculously inaccessible game, and that some of the simple things like tracking players, understanding how much damage you do, how your abilities actually work, and how much health enemies are important for new players (and even old players) to understand and learn the finer points of the game.

Showing enemy health definitely does not suddenly turn NS2 into a casual shooter. If you think it does, you are making some gross oversimplifications to everything else in the NS2 meta.

I do understand the complaints you all have, have read them all, and understand how this feature does change the game. I have been, and will continue to tweak the game to account for the experiences you are feeling are now missing. As an example, the redesign of the Onos bone shield came directly out of the discussions you all had about not being able to bait anymore due to players being able to see your health. It is a way to reintroduce some baiting without having the bait rely on imperfect / partially-hidden information.

Quoting this again to remind people what a bad development and community interaction policy looks like. Lets go down the list. See if you can find exactly where each point is hit.
-Contradicts community feedback by vaguely insisting a bad change has been "positive"
-Decrees that the change is permanent despite overwhelming community outcry in the negative
-Misrepresent the arguments people are using in order to get an easy position to defend your change from.
-Fail to make any real arguments in favor of your position other than the aforementioned "its positive"
-Claim to understand complaints immediately after failing to properly interpret and respond to a quote in the same post.
-Claim that holes left by the newly missing experiences are being filled by unrelated and half baked mechanics.
-Ignoring community feedback, then retroactively pretending that changes made personally were based on community feedback.

Quoting this again to remind people what a bad development and community interaction policy looks like. Lets go down the list. See if you can find exactly where each point is hit.
-Contradicts community feedback by vaguely insisting a bad change has been "positive"
-Decrees that the change is permanent despite overwhelming community outcry in the negative
-Misrepresent the arguments people are using in order to get an easy position to defend your change from.
-Fail to make any real arguments in favor of your position other than the aforementioned "its positive"
-Claim to understand complaints immediately after failing to properly interpret and respond to a quote in the same post.
-Claim that holes left by the newly missing experiences are being filled by unrelated and half baked mechanics.
-Ignoring community feedback, then retroactively pretending that changes made personally were based on community feedback.

As it is, without health there is absolutely no feedback how effective a player is during their life.

Health bars are ugly.

No health bars are awful game design.

Ps. The poll is also badly designed as there is only one option for "remove" which doesn't distinguish between "remove and put in x" and just "remove, I like how the game is right now". While there are two options for keep.

As it is, without health there is absolutely no feedback how effective a player is during their life.

Health bars are ugly.

No health bars are awful game design.

Ps. The poll is also badly designed as there is only one option for "remove" which doesn't distinguish between "remove and put in x" and just "remove, I like how the game is right now". While there are two options for keep.

You have hitmarkers on your crosshair, damage numbers popping up, visual blood splatter and hitsounds. If the server is running NS2+ (which 99% are), you even see how much damage you did and how accurate you were after every death, and in a neat summary when the round ends.

Health bars in FPS titles are an oddity. Claiming awful game design in case of their absence is laughable.

And if you think the poll results would have been any different if I added another option, you're just as delusional as the devs.

The poll is also badly designed as there is only one option for "remove" which doesn't distinguish between "remove and put in x" and just "remove, I like how the game is right now". While there are two options for keep.

Cant Aliens bleed more or change color as they receive dmg instead of health bars?

Hmm, that might in essence be the most easy to implement, understand and most awesome idea I've come across as of yet about this...

In terms of coding/implementation, just a shader colour based on HP/AP (more AP, less blood) I'm guessing one more variable has to be sent over the net per player, to change the colour. Or not, I mean you can use the HP bar it's variables right... The blood would have to be server side though, so there will be a delay (like HP bars have right now). NS2+ already has server side blood IIRC sooooooo

Aura would have it's proper place once more, due to lack of hovaring scorpians HPbars

It is not too damn accurate like the 100% accurate information from HP bars

Would solve the visual clutter of the HUD the bars cause (and the out of place alien HUD technology powered looking HP bars

Would fix the tracking issue in dark room with that "shoot here" hovering HP bar and tracking issues in general (too easy to track issue that is)

Would actually reintroduce HP bluffing and baiting to some extent, although it still would be nerfed

It is kinda a variation of a the colour shader idea traced onto the alien/marine models, I like this one better cause it feels more natural, the other would be more tech heavy and silly. I mean how in the hell do you know the exact HP/AP of the enemy anyways, where is the lore in that. And don't you dare utter nanites, I will climb through this here monitor and deck ya!

As it is, without health there is absolutely no feedback how effective a player is during their life.

Health bars are ugly.

No health bars are awful game design.

Ps. The poll is also badly designed as there is only one option for "remove" which doesn't distinguish between "remove and put in x" and just "remove, I like how the game is right now". While there are two options for keep.

You have hitmarkers on your crosshair, damage numbers popping up, visual blood splatter and hitsounds. If the server is running NS2+ (which 99% are), you even see how much damage you did and how accurate you were after every death, and in a neat summary when the round ends.

Health bars in FPS titles are an oddity. Claiming awful game design in case of their absence is laughable.

And if you think the poll results would have been any different if I added another option, you're just as delusional as the devs.

With the exception of games of yore. Most FPS titles either involve you dying in very few shots (CS, call of duty etc) rendering an HP bar useless or have an HP bar (destiny, overwatch, borderlands etc) as far as I can see from common examples.

And yes, the poll results would be more useful with the same amount of options because its current set-up fails at the first hurdle of collecting data - showing the researcher's bias. So the poll is intrinsically set up to show the result you want to see, which is people hate health bars and want nothing else. But, There are even comments later on stating specifically they voted but had a different point of view.

@Kouji_San is it possible to have aliens actively bleed while below a certain HP amount? in addition to the colour change?
Marines could spark when they have less than x% armour, and bleed when they are below x% health too?

I don't see why not, the armor and hp values are already available for the HP bars. Not sure how framerate would be affected when you have 5v5 aliens and marines on low HP bleeding and sparking all over the place so to speak

@Kouji_San is it possible to have aliens actively bleed while below a certain HP amount? in addition to the colour change?
Marines could spark when they have less than x% armour, and bleed when they are below x% health too?

How is that any better than health bars?

Also Destiny, Overwatch and Borderlands lol. Has to be a joke. Completely different genre all of them. And Overwatch basically the epitom of casual game.

Cause it's less visible and accurate than HP bars, so the tracking issue and information issue are basically nullified.

We all know it's not going to be removed, so might as well think outside the box to come up with a compromise right, not that it is likely they will change it into any of the ideas presented here and way back when it was implemented... TBH, while this thread and the others are a valiant effort, it is most likely also a moot point at this time even though our point is the superior one

@Kouji_San is it possible to have aliens actively bleed while below a certain HP amount? in addition to the colour change?
Marines could spark when they have less than x% armour, and bleed when they are below x% health too?

How is that any better than health bars?

Also Destiny, Overwatch and Borderlands lol. Has to be a joke. Completely different genre all of them. And Overwatch basically the epitom of casual game.

I'm going to take that your stance is essentially that hidden information is sacred?

Anytime a game includes enemies which essentially just suck up all your bullets you NEED feedback on that. Did you nearly kill the onos or barely scratch it - this allows intuitive learning about how to approach onos - as a team and when to chase it.

There are features of this game which a learnt skills that are great, and then there are features which are just unintuitive hurdles to players learning to be better and then enjoy it.
NS3 (if) wont be any better if it includes the same "mechanics"

@Kouji_San is it possible to have aliens actively bleed while below a certain HP amount? in addition to the colour change?
Marines could spark when they have less than x% armour, and bleed when they are below x% health too?

How is that any better than health bars?

Also Destiny, Overwatch and Borderlands lol. Has to be a joke. Completely different genre all of them. And Overwatch basically the epitom of casual game.

I'm going to take that your stance is essentially that hidden information is sacred?

Anytime a game includes enemies which essentially just suck up all your bullets you NEED feedback on that. Did you nearly kill the onos or barely scratch it - this allows intuitive learning about how to approach onos - as a team and when to chase it.

There are features of this game which a learnt skills that are great, and then there are features which are just unintuitive hurdles to players learning to be better and then enjoy it.
NS3 (if) wont be any better if it includes the same "mechanics"

You GOT feedback. Damage numbers tell you exactly how much damage you have dealt.

@Kouji_San is it possible to have aliens actively bleed while below a certain HP amount? in addition to the colour change?
Marines could spark when they have less than x% armour, and bleed when they are below x% health too?

How is that any better than health bars?

Also Destiny, Overwatch and Borderlands lol. Has to be a joke. Completely different genre all of them. And Overwatch basically the epitom of casual game.

I'm going to take that your stance is essentially that hidden information is sacred?

Anytime a game includes enemies which essentially just suck up all your bullets you NEED feedback on that. Did you nearly kill the onos or barely scratch it - this allows intuitive learning about how to approach onos - as a team and when to chase it.

There are features of this game which a learnt skills that are great, and then there are features which are just unintuitive hurdles to players learning to be better and then enjoy it.
NS3 (if) wont be any better if it includes the same "mechanics"

Well... you have a benevolent holy fkin commander watching you from above, who can report lifeform health.
You had a shitty com without a mike? BOOOHOOO shit happens. You usually dont compain when noone can shoot on the team and lose because of that
(dont take it personal :])

EDIT:
It's a teamgame damnit... Those HP bars are like the worst idea EVER for NS